Sunday, April 22, 2001

By Steve Liewer, Yokosuka bureau chief

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Survivors and family members of the Japanese fishing trawler sunk by a U.S. submarine Feb. 9 asked Rear Adm. Robert Chaplin to assure them the Navy would make sure such a tragedy never happens again.

Chaplin, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Japan, met for two hours Friday with about 35-40 family members and survivors in Matsuyama, said command spokesman Cmdr. James Graybeal. The town was the home port of the ill-fated Ehime Maru, about 420 miles southwest of Tokyo. Chaplin also met for about an hour with the governor of Ehime Prefecture, where Matsuyama is located.

"Admiral Chaplin took the opportunity to express his personal sorrow regarding the event, and reaffirm that the Navy has accepted responsibility," Graybeal said.

He said Chaplin explained the Navy’s plans for recovering remains of the victims from the ship’s resting place south of Honolulu, where it sank after the collision with the USS Greeneville. Cmdr. Scott Waddle was demonstrating a surfacing drill to 16 civilian visitors when the Greeneville hit the Ehime Maru.

The Navy plans to carefully lift the ship from the ocean floor and slowly move it into shallower waters for recovery, Graybeal said. Then, because of environmental concerns, it will be returned to deeper water.

Graybeal said Chaplin also explained the options for punishing Waddle open to the Pacific fleet commander, Adm. Thomas Fargo, including either court-martial or admiral’s mast, a non-judicial proceeding.

"We emphasized that the Admiral (Fargo) had not made a decision yet, contrary to what they might have read in the press," Graybeal said.

However, within hours of the meeting, Fargo did decide to follow the court of inquiry’s recommendation and take Waddle to admiral’s mast, according to reports from the Associated Press and other news organizations.

Waddle’s disciplinary hearing, scheduled for Monday at Pacific Fleet headquarters in Pearl Harbor will mean the end of Waddle's Navy career, although he will not face the prospect of prison, navy officials told AP. Fargo may issue Waddle a letter of reprimand to Waddle and grant him an honorable discharge with a pension, the officials said. Waddle could also be fined.

That decision will not sit well with the families in Matsuyama, Ehime governor Moriyuki Kato predicted.

"We could expect quite strong resentment from the families," if Cmdr. Scott Waddle does not face court-martial proceedings, Kato was quoted as saying by a prefectural official.

Graybeal said Friday’s meeting was Chaplin’s fourth with Ehime Maru family members, though the first in which he did not accompany a high-ranking military or diplomatic official. He said Chaplin plans to brief Fargo on the families’ concerns about Navy actions to prevent future collisions, and about the salvage operations.

This article was supplemented by information from the Associated Press.

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